Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Nerd Fest Report

The Midwest Weavers Conference was awesome! Here we are in the cafeteria (at Grinell College, Iowa) nerding it up, looking at wool yarn samples. My roommate is the lady on the right, she grew up in Scotland and is incredibly interesting.

I took a two-day workshop with Anita Luvera Mayer, a pioneer in handwoven clothing. She's been weaving her own clothing since the 60's. This class was specifically about edge finishing and how to join edges without making a seam. We made a huge sample booklet while she lectured and told stories about her life as a weaver.

This is one of her current pieces that was in the gallery. She took all these old lace doilies and dyed them, then appliqued them onto the robe. She's also done a ton of beadwork on it.

She was very energetic and inspiring. A no-nonsense lady. I liked her right away and my favorite thing she told us was that there's no right or wrong way to do something in regards to sewing/weaving, if it works for you, then do it! (She's wearing white gloves because the security guy wouldn't let her touch her own piece without them.)

Here's a good shot of the back of one of her robes that was in the fashion show. She had all these square silk samples and dyed them and sewed them all together.

She's also quoted as saying that she wants to wear something unique and wonderful every day. She really puts her heart into her work, and only makes it for herself. She teaches workshops all over the country and also leads at least two fiber tours abroad a year.

Very inspiring!

(I couldn't figure out how to post more than 5 pictures at a time, so there are 3 posts about the conference that all go together.)

1 comment:

Congrats on 1st place! I'm reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder to my daughter and the mother spins, weaves, and makes all the clothes for the whole family. This is in addition to doing all the cooking and cleaning. Maybe Laura was embellishing quite a bit but it's still very impressive. Lots of descriptions of how warm the full cloth is.

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Current Projects

designing woven fabric

log cabin quilt squares

pattern making

what is cristae?

Cristae ("kris-tee") are the internal compartments formed by the inner membrane of a mitochondrion. (The mitochondria exist in cells and primarily generate energy.) The maximum surface for chemical reactions to occur is within the mitochondria. This allows cellular respiration (aerobic respiration since the mitochondria requires oxygen) to occur.The cristae greatly increase the surface area on which the reactions take place. If they were absent, the inner membrane would be reduced to a single spherical shape, and with less reaction surface available, the reaction efficiency would be likewise reduced. Therefore, cristae are a necessity for the mitochondria to function efficiently. (information from wikipedia)